Near the docks [Saturday afternoon]

[fh_extras]

While the students were distracting many of the island's snow monsters over by the school, a group of intrepid geniuses (and Eliot) were making their way carefully to the dock.

	"I had an Arctic armor," Tony grumbled, keeping a careful eye out for anything that might attack. "Just perfect for an event like this."
	"What happened to it?" Miguel asked. He was in his UMF, mask and all, but had a coat and jeans over it for added protection. His feet weren't exactly warm, but he couldn't dig his talons into the ice through boots, so it was a compromise. "It might be helpful now."
	"Oh, I don't know, did it come equipped with a freeze ray too?" Eliot asked, rolling his eyes. He was pissed off about everything going on right now, but especially the fact that he had to use his mountaineering gear to walk across town. Again.
	And poor Hardison was trudging along behind him, freezing cold and hating every minute of this walk. "I'mma write a very sternly-worded letter to whoever's in charge of infrastructure 'round here," he grumbled, clutching Eliot to keep from faceplanting. "These stairs are a hazard an' I'mma have to sue for damages, just watch."
	"It was actually meant to fight a guy with a freeze ray," Tony said brightly. "Also, it could fly. And was heated. I miss that armor." So sad he blew it up like a drama queen.
	"Heated sounds good." Miguel reached a hand back to help steady Hardison. "Hang on." Eliot, you were on your own. Geniuses stuck together; grumpy people with mountain gear could take care of themselves.
	That was fine with Eliot. The geniuses were slowing him down enough as it was. Geniuses were never dumber than when they were working together. He slipped on a particularly thick sheet of ice, managing to turn it into a controlled skid to the bottom of the flight of stairs. "Y'all coming or not? That iceberg is -- literally going to keep freezing itself." He hated everything about this plan.
	Hardison nodded gratefully and rolled his eyes after Eliot. He clearly did not appreciate the caliber of excellent that was this plan. "We explained this," he said with the aggrieved tone of a man used to repeating himself. "The underlying matrix of the ice crystals--whoa!" And now he was clinging to Miguel for dear life, his foot finding that same thick skid of ice, only being less graceful about it.
	"Please don't distract us with your hatred of mad science," Tony said. In any other climate, thunder would thematically roll and lightning would strike with those words.
	"It isn't mad," Miguel grumbled, standing easily and waiting for Hardison to find his feet. "Just counterintuitive if you don't grasp the science." Eliot. "And it's something they won't be expecting and won't have a counter for, with any luck."
	"And if you miss, you'll only cryogenically freeze some poor sap trying to rig the engine. Sure, this plan is flawless."
	"I have perfect confidence in Tony's ability to aim," Hardison said calmly. Sure, it might be news to Tony that he was being nominated for aiming duty, but that was okay! The important thing was that Hardison had faith.
	He might have the second most combat experience in the team? Maybe? Also, well used to trying out experimental equipment with himself as the test subject. "Thank you, Hardison. I knew you were my favorite for a reason," Tony said shooting a glance back at him. Which was why he missed seeing something move in the snow up ahead.
	"He's been fighting for years, he better be good," Miguel said. "I mean - who's there?" He caught that movement and turned to put himself in front of the group as much as he could, waiting to see if it was a person or a snow monster.
	Yeah, but how often had he shot an experimental freeze ray? Just because you could fire one type of weapon didn't mean you could fire all of them. Eliot raised an eyebrow at Miguel trying to protect him -- the guy wasn't even wearing shoes for chrissake -- then scanned their surroundings. "Snow monster," he said calmly. "Seven o'clock."
	And Hardison, the guy with the least combat experience of any of them, immediately tried scuttling out of the way, trying to find Eliot because that was what he did. "Shoot it!" he hissed. "With the freeze ray! Field test, Tony, field test!"
	Tony hummed, fiddling with the controls as he stepped around Miguel to fire at the creature. "Sorry to freeze you out!" he said, sending it scuttling back mostly in confusion at the blast.
	Miguel rolled his eyes. "You're as bad as Morph." Tony was not. But that pun wasn't exactly good, either. He shot out webbing to hold the thing in place. "Try again!"
	"All of you talk too much," Eliot said. He was eyeing more movement coming in from the other direction, hand clenched on his walking stick, prepared to beat the thing back if the others took too long on the first monster.
	Normally, Hardison would stay behind Eliot. But the creature was webbed and therefore less of a danger, so he was slipping up to prod the weapon with Tony. "Maybe we should make a slight adjustment to the sight?" he suggested, pulling out his laptop to futz around with the programming. "Try again," he suggested. "Maybe somethin' like, 'It's time for you to chill'?"
	The snow creature wasn't happy with any of this. This turn of events was possibly the least wanted outcome for it. Which was why it was making plaintive noises for even more of it's breathren to come save it and beat their punk asses down. "Banter is important in a fight," Tony said with a grin, tilting his head as he looked over Hardison's readings. "I think we should break the ice with them." Then fired again as more of the creatures lumbered on out of the snow drifts.
	"Sure, whatever." Morph had once declared Miguel the only unfunny Spider-person in existence. "Fight is more important in a fight!" Fortunately that blast seemed to freeze several of them in their tracks. Shock, he couldn't even escape the puns in his own head. And they were slowly breaking their way free, too. "I think we're getting enough power now; maybe if we adjust..." he looked over Hardison's shoulder and tapped the requisite numbers "...here, we can try for a more concentrated blast. It'll get fewer of them, but should stop them cold." He groaned. Stupid puns.
	Yeah, there were now at least half a dozen snow monsters coming up from the other direction. Eliot shot a glance at the geniuses to make sure they didn't seem in incipient danger of freezing their own feet off, then pulled his goggles down and moved to intercept the closest of the monsters approaching on their six. Stupid snow didn't even make that satisfying thud when you hit it. Just that weird soft little crunch.
	"But if we go with a more concentrated blast, we run the risk of only partially freezin' 'em," Hardison argued, adjusting the numbers again slightly. "Didn't we have that equation figured out?" He tabbed over to the program where they'd figured out the blast strength ratios and pulled that up. "Hmmm, I guess a little more concentrated power'll still put them on ice." Monsters? What snow monsters?
	"We did," Tony muttered, shooting at one coming a little too close mostly on autopilot, knocking it back onto the ground. It wasn't too far off from using the repulsors after all. "Bump it up 5%, if you could."
	"That's what field tests are for," Miguel pointed out, resigned. "Wait - instead of using the extra power for more output, can we bump it down? Same amount of ray, but colder - crystallize them where they stand."
	Eliot took off one monster's head with his walking stick, while smashing a second's carrot nose back through its face with his opposite elbow. He sent a back kick at a third, but it grabbed onto his ankle. With its stick arms. He snapped his leg back, taking those arms with him, then stabbed his walking stick through its face.
	The nerds were still nerding. "Oooh, I like that," Hardison said, busily running the numbers through the systems. "Yo, Tony, try that again!" They were gonna take that single snow monster out!
	"I'm telling you, the other way is better," Tony replied in a little sing-song. He took aim on the nearest of... wow, that was a lot now... and fired again, forcing it to stagger back. Then fired again and again to push back the incoming horde. You know. For the data. "Have we tried taking their hats away yet? I'm pretty sure that was a thing in Frosty the Snowman."
	"What hats?" Miguel asked. He shot webs at the...feet area? thing?...of the nearest bunch to hold them in place. "And that way doesn't seem to be doing much good, so why not try something else?"
	Eliot dodged between two snow monsters, using their momentum to smash them together into a cloud of flurries. He got two more through the head with his walking stick, dodging a well-aimed icicle attack from a fifth, only to be clubbed from behind by a sixth. It was like getting hit in the head by a large, heavy snowball. He growled faintly under his breath, shaking loose snow from his face, and fell back a step. The two he'd smashed together had formed into a single, larger snow monster, and the ones he'd taken down earlier were making their way back to their . . . base snowball things. And more of them just kept coming.
	Not for the first time in their career, Hardison was completely oblivious to the trouble his partner was in. Or even that his partner was fighting at all. "Okay, so this is a field test, let's do it scientifically," he said. "We'll do one test Tony's way and another test Miguel's and then we'll see which test was more effective at kicking ice." Was he proud of that pun? You bet your ice he was.
	Tony held up his free hand for a high-five without even looking away from the computer screen, angling his body just so to keep Hardison (and the computer) safe from harm while firing again. Sadly he had noticed Eliot, but thought he was holding his own admirably. ~Teamwork~
	Miguel answered the high-five. "Science is the way to go." He turned around to web up a couple snow monsters that were coming up behind Eliot. "Not forgiving that pun, though. But okay, go for it."
	Eliot took that as an opening to reach around Tony and grab the freeze ray, then set about sniping the webbed snow monsters surrounding them in quick succession. What? It was too ridiculous a contraption to be considered a gun. And he was really tired of all the puns.
	"Hey, you can't just--whoa!" Guess who had literally just seen all the snow monsters. Just guess. "A'ight, babe," he said, a moment later, when the panic gave way to appreciate at the way Eliot was taking them out with the freeze ray. "Get 'em with your hot self." This time he was holding up his fist for a bump. He knew Tony, at least, appreciated his humor.
	A fistbump Tony readily returned, giving Eliot an appreciative look. "Good work, Hardison." Was he talking about the tweaks to the gun? Maybe?
	Miguel rolled his eyes and webbed up a couple more monsters, then kicked them into Eliot's line of sight. "Guess this way's working fine. Which method was it?"
	"Shutting up and just using the damn thing." Yeah, Eliot knew that wasn't what Miguel meant.
	"Riiiiight?" Hardison said, knowing full well that Tony wasn't talking about gun tweaks. "Bae, I'mma make some adjustments on the fly. Which works better for you? This one?" He pushed a button. "Or this one?" He reset it to the original settings. "This one?" Back up. "Or this one?" Back down. It was like an eye exam, but with freeze rays!
	"I feel like we should be filming this," Tony said, trying not to smile over this.
	Miguel shrugged, unlocked his holocomm, set it to record, and handed it to Tony.
	"You keep fussin' with the damn thing and it'll be you I have a problem with," Eliot muttered to Hardison. Then, grudgingly, "The second setting's workin' a little smoother." There were now a couple dozen webbed-and-frozen snow monsters all around them. Apparently "freeze them!" wasn't that bad a plan after all.
	"I'm sorry, what was that?" Hardison asked, looking far more gleeful than any unarmed man in the middle of a horde of snow monsters should. "That means he liiiiiikes it!" Hardison translated for the other two. "Otherwise he'd still be complainin'!"
	Tony blinked once at the device before his eyes went a little blank and he sifted through it with the power of being a nerd his Extremis brain to get it just to his liking. "Smile, gorgeous," he called out.
	"It also means he likes the original setting better." Miguel threw up his hands. Then blinded a couple more monsters with webbing for good measure.
	"And that y'all are still talking too much." Seriously. Had none of these people ever heard of stealth?
	Hardison mugged for the device, posing next to Eliot as much as possible without fouling up his aim. "Everybody say 'Field tests!'" he cried. Then looked guiltily at Eliot and said, "I mean, Field tests!" he said softly. Still mugging though.
	Tony wore a bright red and gold, flying suit of armor, Eliot. No. Stealth wasn't his bag. "We now observe the Eliot in his native environment," Tony said in his best David Attenborough impression. This team was clearly the best.
	And Miguel wore a Day of the Dead costume. Nope, no stealth here. He was, however, going to dig into the ice with one foot and roundhouse-kick the head off a snowman that had gotten too close. Hey, couldn't let Eliot have all the fun! "Not so stupid an idea now, is it?" he aimed Eliot's way.
	"Y'all remember that I'm holding a weapon, right?" Don't tease the Eliot holding a freeze ray. That was just bad policy.
	"C'mon, babe, don't threaten our friends just cause they're right an' you were wrong about how awesome the freeze ray would be." ...That hadn't exactly been his point, but enh?
	"Plus, Hardison can shut it off with his laptop." A beat. "Or I could with my brain." Tony made a face at snow 'bodies' around them. "We should probably keep moving."
	"Probably," Miguel agreed. "Field tests complete?"
	Eliot didn't bother responding with more than another growl. He slung the freeze ray onto his shoulder and started towards the docks again, breaking up the ice in front of him so Hardison didn't end up taking another header.
	And Hardison didn't point out that even if they turned off the 'ray' part of the freeze ray, it would still be a melee weapon. Mostly because he didn't want Eliot thinking of using it to bash the snowmen. Okay and also because for all his growling, he'd never actually use it on them. But mostly the first thing. It was delicate! They'd been working under suboptimal conditions and it was very possible some of those bits were held together by webbing! "Let's follow Mr. Punchy there an' hurry up an' save the island," Hardison said, trudging along the path Eliot had made for him. That was Eliot's love language.
	"Are we sure he's not related to Wolverine?" Tony muttered, mostly to himself as he followed along carefully.
	"Short, hairy, grumpy...are we sure he's not his world's version of Wolverine?" Miguel asked.

[OOC: To be continued below!]

Comments

[vdistinctive]

Eliot paused long enough to fire at another approaching snow monster, then continued storming off.

He wasn't going to point out that he'd turned into a wolverine several years back.

[geniuswithasmartphone]

No, but you know who was? Guess. Just guess.

"So, y'know how sometimes the island just turns you into things?" he asked casually. "Like, I got turned into a stuffed bear once? Eliot got turned into a wolverine. Terrorized the staff and just ate raw meat for days."

[imafuturist]

"...the person or the animal?" Tony. Why are you so mean?

[what_the_shock]

"Terrorizing the staff, could be either," Miguel pointed out.

[vdistinctive]

"What part of 'stop talking' are you geniuses having trouble with?"

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"The stop?" Hardison said.

Mostly because that was a very obvious answer.

[imafuturist]

"Talking is a free action!" Oh god, they were such nerds.

[what_the_shock]

"It's not like they don't know we're here," Miguel pointed out. "Or like that isn't the actual point."

They were the distraction and helpers, here; they were supposed to be seen.